A Hands-On Approach to Apparel Business
Stephanie Steinman--twentysomething, blond and 5 feet 1--has trouble getting people to take her seriously as an entrepreneur, especially when she models her company’s signature cherry-print, cotton jammies. As a young woman who got into business right out of college, Steinman learned she had to master every aspect of her company or risk getting taken advantage of. Knowing how the business works--from handling sales reps to packing and shipping to customer relations--has been crucial for Steinman, who was interviewed by freelance writer Karen E. Klein.
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People see me and they assume I don’t know what I’m doing. They’ll look at me and it takes them a while to realize that I’m trying to get a better price on this or that. It doesn’t help that I can’t sew and I have a PR degree. I got the idea for my product line a few months before I graduated from Pepperdine University, because I couldn’t find cotton underwear that was comfortable but also cute.
I designed what I wanted to wear, had someone make up samples, took them into stores and they sold! The customers were calling me to reorder within a few days. Before I knew it, I had my own business.
As the company grew, I had to jump into the deep end and learn how to swim. I was naive, and some things I learned the hard way.
When I hired my first sales reps, for instance, they told me when they got paid and what percentage they made on each sale. I assumed they were honest, but I did my homework and it wasn’t long before I caught on that they weren’t demanding that much, under that time frame, from anyone else, so why was I paying it? I made mistakes, but thankfully none of them were huge mistakes that couldn’t be fixed pretty quickly.
That experience taught me that I needed to understand how every aspect of my business worked. I decided to learn how to rep a line myself--how to make sales calls, go to trade shows, how to get buyers on the phone. I did that for four or five months and it was a crucial time for me to learn who my customers were, how to sell the line, and how the industry worked.
For the first few years I ran the company by myself out of my apartment. I’d pack boxes all day, return calls, go to the bank. The stores I sold to started asking for more items to go with the underwear--chemises, camisoles, robes and pajamas.
Pretty soon my products started popping up on TV shows and in movies, and celebrities started picking them up at local boutiques. I was just as shocked as anyone else! As the product line grew and got more popular, I added a baby and children’s line, figured out how to negotiate deals, talk to suppliers and hire employees.
My parents have owned an art gallery in Beverly Hills for 20 years, so my father helped me a lot. He told me how crucial it was for me to understand all the aspects of the business for myself.
I talk to people who own companies now and ask them where they get their shipping boxes, or their packing tape, and they have no idea. What if they lose the employee who orders their boxes? They’ll be lost. We sell to 3,000 boutiques and department stores nationwide and if you give me the name of any store, I can tell you what city and state it’s in. I never want to be on vacation somewhere and walk into a store and be surprised that my stuff is there.
Keeping a hands-on involvement in the business is important to me. I pay all the bills and do all the deposits myself, so I know exactly where we’re at financially and when we can and can’t buy fabric. I know which customers are having problems, what’s in inventory and who is slow to pay.
I pass all the information on to the people who work with me, so I make sure we’re all well-informed about what we’re doing. Without being a little bit of a control freak, I feel I wouldn’t be on top of my business.
On the other hand, being young and a little naive wasn’t all bad when we got started. I trusted my gut early on and took some risks that I might not have done if I’d been older or more informed about business.
When I first designed the cherry print that has become our signature, I was asking everyone if they liked it and if they would buy it. I was worried when I found out that there were minimum orders on fabric and I didn’t know if we’d ever sell it all.
Someone told me not to go ahead with it, because the investment I had to make was too costly. But I decided I was already into the deep end with the company and I might as well go with my gut. Of course, that fabric has become our most popular print. We sell it year-round and we just can’t keep it in stock.
I don’t know everything yet; I’m still learning as I go. Every day I’m amazed to find out there’s some other detail that I’m not familiar with. Someone recently asked me how many units we ship a month, for instance, and I realized I didn’t know! The next day, you can believe I went in and found out.
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Recent Learning Curve columns are available at www.latimes.com/curve.
If your business can provide a lesson to other entrepreneurs, contact Karen E. Klein at the Los Angeles Times, 1333 S. Mayflower Ave., Suite 100, Monrovia, CA 91016 or at kklein6349@aol.com. Include your name, address and telephone number.
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At a Glance
Company: Cherry Pie Inc.
Owner: Stephanie Steinman
Nature of business: Designs and manufactures women’s and children’s apparel
Location: 3380 Livonia Ave., Los Angeles 90034
Founded: 1996
E-mail: stephanie@cherrypieinc.com
Employees: 22
Annual revenue: $2.9 million
